We had a little adventure yesterday, Mark from the boat
across the river, his daughter Bree, and I.
He rang me up fairly early in the morning to tell me that there were
dolphins in the river just upstream of us. They were in a big wide spot, so
shallow with the tide right out that they couldn’t submerge enough to get their
fins below the surface, and looking very agitated.
Mark had rung Project Jonah,
https://www.projectjonah.org.nz/ and
they were on their way up by car. Mark
took his inflatable off to pick them up while I took SEI up toward the dolphins
to have a look, not too close, they were upset enough as it was.
When Mark came back he had a couple of
Dept of Conservation staff on board as well as the Project Jonah people, and we
managed to get up stream of the pod, wanting to hold them in the area until the
rising tide had given them enough depth to swim free rather than letting them
head upstream where they could be trapped and stranded on the next low tide.
Much gentle herding, two boats not
being enough I launched “Deflatermouse” my little RIB with its 2 hp Honda
outboard, gave that to the “Jonah” guys while I rowed SEI giving us three
boats. It took a while, but about mid
tide we got them over the mudbanks and out into the channel, Mark herding them
downstream through the moorings and out to sea.
I left SEI tied up about half a mile
below my home, transferring to Deflatermouse and followed Mark out into the
open .
The DOC guys had brought their big
power boat up from Auckland, and we all met up opposite the entrance to the Okura
River, where they tied our two RIBs alongside and towed us back home.
It sounds simple, and really there is
not a lot to tell, but it was a huge buzz helping these creatures back to
safety. Thanks Project Jonah and Dept of Conservation for their part in it, we’re amateurs Mark, Bree and I, may have succeeded but they’ve done this sort of work
before, know the Dolphins, know their temperaments, their habits and how to
handle them. Between our three boats,
our knowledge of the channels in the river and their expertise, 12 or a few
more ( very hard to get an accurate count ) dolphins were moved back out to
safety.
It was an awesome day on the river.
I could almost hear his thoughts, "What are those? Should I try and chase them, or bark at them or are their teeth bigger than me?"
Thats my boatshed workshop and my floating home behind that mass of fins, I'm sitting in my little 15ft double ended rowing boat, about 10 ft away from them, hard up against the bank of the river. it was an amazing experience working to get them away back to deep water 3 miles or so downstream.
